Book Available 2/07
Listen
SIXTH EDITION
Joseph Kerman
University of California, Berkeley
Gary Tomlinson
University of Pennsylvania
© 2008
Overview
About the book
The music
Table of Contents
Technology
Sample chapters
Supplements
Meet the authors


Exam & Desk Copies
About the book


The best listening charts help students focus on the music
  • Listening Charts provide visually clear roadmaps of the structure and crucial details of key music selections. Each Listening Chart fits on a single page for easy reading and is accompanied by a more detailed discussion of the music to guide students through multiple listenings.

    • click to enlarge
    listening chart

  • Interactive Listening Charts on the Listen Web site work with the CDs and feature additional activities. Strategic references to the DVD, CD sets, and online resources work to provide students with a seamless multimedia experience.
“Kerman is a wonderful writer. . . . The Listening Charts are far better than those of any other text I’ve examined.”

—Paul Davies, Foothill College


The best cultural contexts help students relate to the music
  • Listen’s lush Prelude chapters provide the cultural, historical, and stylistic context students need to understand the styles, forms, and innovations of each musical period.
  • A wealth of illustrations, maps, and marginal quotations draw students into the artistic and intellectual ideas of each period.
  • Composer biographies provide important background information as well as suggestions for further listening.
  • Timelines of each musical era are now gathered in an appendix so that students can more easily visualize the evolution of Western music.
  • Global Perspectives sections offer flexible coverage of non-Western music, strategically placed in select chapters. They’re easy to integrate or easy to skip, depending on the needs of your course.
“The abundance of illustrations and the range of cultural references are terrific!”

—Martin Marks, Massachusetts Institute of Technology


The best topics and examples make music approachable
  • A new ice-breaker chapter uses a guided discussion of Wagner's Prelude to The Valkyrie to introduce students to fundamental concepts while engaging them right away in active, focused listening. Later in the book, students delve deeper into the opera's opening scenes.
  • Revised coverage of twentieth-century music offers students a more accessible, streamlined discussion of early modernism — without eliminating any musical examples.
  • A new section on the rise of film music introduces Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky and draws meaningful connections to the social, cultural, and artistic ideas of the World War II era.
  • Revised coverage of music at the end of the millenium gives students a more accessible presentation of music since 1945. With new examples from Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians and John Adams’s El Niño, the text draws students’ listening into the twenty-first century and explores the directions contemporary composers are taking.
“Listen is neither too complicated nor too simplistic in its approach to the appreciation of Western music — it is just right for the average non-music major.”

—James E. Cunningham, Florida Atlantic University

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